sexta-feira, 30 de setembro de 2011

Fri September 30, 2011

Co-founder Yang said to be acting chief

On the heels of reports that original Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has returned to the company to take control, The Wall Street Journal
reports that the board of directors for the troubled search firm has
been looking at executive head-hunters to interview potential new
permanent CEOs, while still looking at buyout offers, sources say. The
search firms may have been asked to find executives that could help sell
all or part of Yahoo, or try to turn the company around.

Yahoo, which in 2009 forced Yang out as CEO, abruptly fired his replacement Carol Bartz
earlier this month over the lack of clear direction and flat revenues,
though the company remains profitable despite the rise of competitors
such as Google and Bing (on the search side) and Facebook (on the social
side). The firm says it has an average of 700 million unique visitors
per month to its various sites, including the popular Yahoo News, Yahoo
Sports and Yahoo Finance​ aggregator pages.

Yahoo reached an agreement with Microsoft,
a long-time suitor for the company, in 2009 which saw Yahoo abandon its
own search-engine technology in favor of Bing in a 10-year agreement
with MS, in exchange for being able to sell premium ads for both
websites and a royalty on traffic sent to Bing by Yahoo for five years.
Yang, who is said to be running the company now despite the naming of
CFO Tim Morse as acting
CEO, was opposed to any Microsoft deal and in part lost his former
title because of it. If Yang remains involved in more than just a
"caretaker" role, his relationship with Microsoft may come under
investor scrutiny.

The first of the executive search firms will discuss options with Yahoo
for candidates as early as next week. Yahoo is said to be open to an
outright sale of the company or portions of itself, but is also
interested in finding a new CEO that could help the company launch new
"consumer services" and perhaps expand its fortunes despite strong
competition

Residents wade through the floodwaters as
they evacuate to safer grounds following massive flooding in Calumpit
township, Bulacan province, north of Manila, Philippines, September 30,
2011.

Residents in the Philippines are bracing for another powerful storm
expected to dump massive amounts of rain over the same area just flooded
by Typhoon Nerat.

Forecasters say the new storm, Typhoon
Nalgae, will hit the main island of Luzon Saturday morning. They say
Nalgae has intensified rapidly and now bears winds of more than 200
kilometers per hour.

Officials are warning residents to be take precautions and stay alert to the storm's progress.

More
than 40 people were killed and 30 more remain missing after Nerat tore
through the region this week. The storm downed trees and caused huge
waves that crashed over seawalls in Manila, flooding a hospital, several
businesses and the U.S. embassy.

Heavy rains also caused widespread flooding that has yet to recede in some areas.

NEW: Official says Iran doesn't execute people because of their religion

Nadarkhani got death sentence for rape and extortion

He is the leader of a network of house churches in Iran

Washington (CNN) -- Christian Pastor Youcef
Nadarkhani will be put to death for several charges of rape and
extortion, charges that differ greatly from his original sentence of
apostasy, Iran's semi-official Fars News agency reported Friday.
Gholomali Rezvani, the deputy governor of Gilan province, where
Nadarkhani was tried and convicted, accused Western media of twisting
the real story, referring to him as a "rapist." A previous report from
the news agency claimed he had committed several violent crimes,
including repeated rape and extortion.
"His crime is not, as some claim, converting others to Christianity,"
Rezvani told Fars. "He is guilty of security-related crimes."
In a translated Iranian Supreme Court brief from 2010, however, the
charge of apostasy is the only charge leveled against Nadarkhani.
"Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani, son of Byrom, 32-years old, married, born in
Rasht in the state of Gilan is convicted of turning his back on Islam,
the greatest religion the prophesy of Mohammad at the age of 19," reads
the brief.
The brief was obtained by CNN from the American Center for Law and
Justice and was translated from its original Farsi by the Confederation
of Iranian Students in Washington.
It goes on to say that during the court proceeding, Nadarkhani denied the prophecy of Mohammad and the authority of Islam.
"He (Nadarkhani) has stated that he is a Christian and no longer
Muslim," states the brief. "During many sessions in court with the
presence of his attorney and a judge, he has been sentenced to execution
by hanging according to article 8 of Tahrir -- olvasileh."
Rezvani, the official from Gilan province, confirmed that his execution is "not imminent" nor is it final.

He is a Zionist and has committed security-related crimes.
Gholomali Rezvani

Mohammadali Dadkhah, the pastor's lawyer, said through a translator
that even in light of the Fars News report, he does not believe
Nadarkhani will be put to death.
"The case is still in progress," Dadkhah said. "There's a 95% that he won't get the death penalty. Yes, I still believe that."
Dadkhah spoke briefly of the trial proceedings, stating that he
presented documents to the court that should be convincing, including
documents from Shi'ite leaders that state the crime does not warrant the
possible punishment.
"This is a legal process that should take its course, and it should stand, on its own merits. It should succeed," Dadkhah said.
Nadarkhani, the leader of a network of house churches in Iran, was
first convicted of apostasy in November 2010, a charge he subsequently
appealed all the way to the Iranian Supreme Court. After four days of an
appeals trial that started Sunday at a lower court in Gilan Province,
Nadarkhani refused to recant his beliefs.
That said, Rezvani -- echoing an earlier report from Fars -- insisted
that "Nadarkhani's crime and his death sentence have nothing to do with
his beliefs.
"No one is executed in Iran for their choice of religion," he added.
"He is a Zionist and has committed security-related crimes."
The possible execution of Nadarkhani, based on an assumption it is
tied to his Christian belief, has elicited responses from the highest
levels of the United States government, too.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement Friday that
said the United States stands with "all Iranians against the Iranian
government's hypocritical statements and actions."
The White House released a statement on Thursday, stating that
Nadarkhani "has done nothing more than maintain his devout faith, which
is a universal right for people."
"That the Iranian authorities would try to force him to renounce that
faith violates the religious values they claim to defend, crosses all
bounds of decency and breaches Iran's own international obligations,"
reads the statement.
Leonard Leo, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, says a trial for apostasy in Iran is rare. According
to him, this is the first apostasy trial since 1990.
Nadarkhani's trial and his possible execution have engaged American
Christians, as well. Todd Nettleton, spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs,
a Christian organization that attempts to assist with persecuted and
minority churches around the world, called the news of the new charges
proof that international attention on the issue is working.
"They are feeling the attention, they are feeling the weight of the
eyes of the world watching how they are treating this man," Nettleton
said. "I am dumbfounded, though, that at this stage in the game, this is
what they would trot out."
Voice of the Martyrs manages a Facebook page that has brought a lot
of attention to Nadarkhani's trial. With comments updated by the minute,
thousand of people have taken to Facebook to spread the word about the
pastor.
In light of this news, Nettleton said the Facebook page would continue to be active.
"I think our first response will be prayer for pastor Youcef,"
Nettleton said. "Prayer that justice will be done and that he will
remain faithful no matter that the days ahead may bring for him."

MIAMI -- Forecasters say Hurricane Ophelia is rapidly gaining strength and is expected to pass east of Bermuda.
On Friday afternoon, Ophelia had winds approaching 115 mph (185 kph).
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the center of Ophelia was
about 535 miles (860 kilometers) south of Bermuda, and was moving
north-northwest at about 14 mph (22 kph). It was expected to speed up
and pass east of Bermuda on Saturday.
A tropical storm watch is effect for Bermuda.
Ophelia reached hurricane strength Thursday afternoon and became a
Category 3 storm Friday. It is the fourth hurricane of the season.
Earlier, Ophelia caused flooding and cut off communities on Dominica.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Philippe remained far from land in the Atlantic.

TOKYO—An independent panel advising Japan's Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry confirmed Friday that the ministry's
nuclear watchdog was involved in attempts by utilities to manipulate
public opinion in favor of nuclear power, a conclusion likely to
reinforce public mistrust in the nuclear industry and to raise further
hurdles for the restart of idled reactors.
The ministry also announced later in the day that it has suspended
former Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama
for one month after finding he engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct
with a female staffer during working hours at the height of the nuclear
crisis.
The panel's conclusion is likely to renew calls for reforming
governance at power companies, which have a reputation for being
secretive about their nuclear-power operations and for covering up
mishaps at their plants.
"The revelations may further undermine public confidence in nuclear
policy after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant," said
Takashi Oizumi, chairman of the panel and former public prosecutor, at a
news conference.
The panel looked into 41 government-sponsored events over five years.
No attempts of manipulation were found at symposiums involving Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant.
According to the panel report, the ministry's officials—mostly from
its NISA offices—asked the operators of five nuclear-power plants to
encourage employees, between 2005 and 2009, to attend
government-sponsored briefings and symposiums and to express opinions in
favor of nuclear energy.
Such gatherings are meant to provide an opportunity for the
government to explain nuclear-power policy and for the public to express
opinions. Local mayors and governors often used such events to gauge
public opinion and make decisions on whether they would proceed in line
with the government's nuclear policy.
The government already announced over the summer plans to overhaul
the regulation of nuclear power and to step up safety checks at nuclear
plants. But there has been little sign that public confidence in
nuclear-power is returning. Only 11 of the nation's 54 commercial
reactors remain in operation.
Opposition Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Taro Kono argued that
the utilities can't be trusted without a complete overhaul of their
corporate governance, including the appointment of external board
members.
The symposiums in question were on the use of uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide fuel at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai plant in October 2005, Shikoku Electric Power Co.'s Ikata plant in June 2006, Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka plant in August 2007, and Hokkaido Electric Power Co.'s Tomari plant in 2008.
NISA also was found to have been involved in briefing sessions about the quake resistance of Tohoku Electric Power Co.'s Onagawa plant in October 2006.
Mr. Nishiyama was replaced as NISA spokesman in June following media
reports that he was having an extramarital affair while serving as the
public face of the ministry during the Fukushima Daiichi disaster
between March and June. He continued to work at the ministry.

TOKYO -- Japan lifted some evacuation
advisories around the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear
plant Friday to reassure tens of thousands of residents who fled the
worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl that it is safe to return home.
A 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone remains in place around the
plant, which was badly damaged by the March 11 tsunami that left nearly
20,000 people dead or missing across Japan's northeast coast.
But officials said the advisories for five municipalities
12-19 miles (20-30 kilometers) away were lifted because the plant had
been restored to a relatively stable condition and radiation levels were
within safety standards.
Environment Minister Goshi Hosono, the government's top nuclear
crisis official, said the decision was a major step toward restoring
normalcy to the region and boosting ongoing efforts to resettle the
largely deserted towns.
Local officials, however, said they did not expect residents to come flooding back right away.
Motohoshi Yamada, the mayor of one of the affected towns, said in a
statement Friday that further radiation monitoring and infrastructure
repairs must be carried out before the town will be ready to function
again.
"We are doing all we can to assure that our townspeople will be able
to return as soon as possible," said Yamada, whose town, Hirono, is
right on the edge of the no-go zone. "As soon as we believe residents
can return safely and securely, we will let them know."
The advisories were issued April 22 and affected about 59,000 people.
The government did not order residents outside the 12-mile zone to
leave. Instead, it cautioned them to be prepared to remain indoors or
evacuate at any time in the event of a further crisis at the plant. Many
– fearing radioactive contamination and cut off from public services –
left anyway.

Tens of thousands remain in voluntary exile.
The five towns have begun efforts to decontaminate buildings and
restart public services so that residents can return. A government panel
is also compiling guidelines to address concerns from residents and
support their resettlement process.
Experts say it could take decades for some of the areas nearest the
plant to be safe for habitation. The disaster is the worst since
Chernobyl in 1986.
Still, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., announced this
week that it was making significant progress toward controlling the
temperatures in the reactors, a key to stabilizing them and eventually
shutting them down altogether.

Apple is working to secure iCloud music rights for international customers, according to CNET.
The iTunes legal team is trying to get international cloud-music rights
for October 4th’s iPhone event, due to the fact that Apple is expected
to launch iCloud to the public at that time.
Procuring these rights would assumedly give international iCloud customers the ability to re-download music and stream tracks through iTunes Match.CNET reports:

“Sources
familiar with the discussions between Apple, record companies, and
music publishers, say Apple is seeking international music licenses for
its iCloud service. The licenses would be similar to those the company
has already obtained for U.S. operations, the sources said. If iTunes
managers wrap up negotiations in time, they could announce the offering
at a Tuesday press event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.,
where the company is expected to roll out the iPhone 5, the next
generation of the iconic smartphone.”

According to CNET’s
sources, countries like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom will
all be included in the deal. While an agreement is almost wrapped up,
“nothing is signed” yet.
Canada was not mentioned in the report as a country that Apple is working on procuring rights for. A previous email
from Apple VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue said that Apple was
“working on adding Canada” and that the company hoped “to do so after
the US launch.”
iCloud and iTunes Match will give customers the
ability to download songs multiple times from any authorized device and
stream an digital library on the go. While iCloud will be free with
limited storage, iTunes Match will cost $24.99/year and offer a
customer’s music library for cloud streaming.
It was previously assumed
that the UK wouldn’t get iTunes Match support until at least 2012. It’s
good to hear that Apple is working to secure international rights
sooner, and we hope that a deal can be closed before Tuesday’s event.

Alex Heath is an afternoon news contributor at Cult of Mac. He also serves as an editor and contributor for the iDownloadBlog. Alex is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in acting and cinema performance.

Apple Puts More Finishing Touches on Lion 10.7.2 with New Beta

By Alex Heath (5:18 pm, Sep. 30, 2011)

Apple has seeded OS X Lion 10.7.2 Build 11C71 to developers.
The update addresses no major issues and instead focuses on some
finishing touches for what will most likely be the public launch of OS X
10.7.2 next week.
This beta build of OS X makes a few slight
improvements to the Lion Recovery tool and fixes a firmware password
issue with Find My Mac. Earlier today, Apple also released iTunes beta 9 for developers currently testing iTunes Match.
The
previous beta build of Lion addressed several issues with iCloud, and
Apple will push out an official Lion update to customers with iCloud
integration when the service is made available to the public after
Apple’s next media event.

As the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray in the death of pop superstar
Michael Jackson continues to transfix people, there's something coming
on the calendar that will draw their interest as well: the Michael
Forever Tribute concert scheduled for Oct. 8, 6 p.m. in Cardiff, Wales.

It's certainly cheaper than making the trek to Cardiff. Tickets
there can run as high as $196. Instead, fans who wish to view it live
on Facebook can pay 40 Facebook Credits, or $3.99, prior to October 8,
or 50 Facebook Credits, or $4.99, on the day of the event. PayPal is
also being accepted. Just remember that 6 p.m. in Cardiff works out to 1
p.m. EDT, if you're in the U.S. (and you can work out other time zones,
we're sure).
The Michael Forever Tribute is set to feature performances by
Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Leona Lewis, Ne-Yo, Craig David, Pixie
Lott, Alexandra Burke, Alien Ant Farm and Motown legend Smokey
Robinson. Beyonce will also appear, but not live. Instead, she will
appear in a pre-recorded video set, dubbed a "special contribution on
video."
While Facebook is being used to foster the concert, it turns out
there is also a Facebook group against the Michael Forever Tribute.
That group is the Fans against Michael Forever Tribute group. They say their mission is :This page is for Michael Jackson fans who disagree with the
Michael Forever Tribute. The admin on the tribute page are rude and
unprofessional, In our Opinion they have no interest in Michael's legacy
and only want to work with certain family members to cash in.WE ARE NOT HERE TO INSPIRE HATRED, WE ARE HERE TO HAVE OUR VOICES HEARD.
Meanwhile, the Michael Forever Tribute page says:Katherine Jackson is delighted to announce Michael Forever, the ultimate tribute concert to the King of Pop
A spectacular tribute concert on Saturday 8th October 2011 to be held at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
Either way, Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx ("Ray," Best Actor, 2004)
will host the event. It is true that there has been some rumbling
from the Jackson clan, reportedly including Janet, Jermaine and Randy,
as well as some fans about the timing of the show, which is taking
place, as we mentioned, right in the middle of the manslaughter trial of Jackson's physician, Dr. Conrad Murray.

New York: `Desperate Housewives` star Eva Longoria and Tina Fey have been named the highest paid actresses on TV.

Longoria, 36, who plays Gabrielle Solis
in the programme and Fey who stars in the award winning `30 Rock` each
earned USD 13 million between May 2010 and 2011, according to Forbes
magazine.

Longoria`s `Desperate Housewives` co-star Marcia
Cross, who plays Bree on the show is next on the list alongside `Law
& Order: Special Victims Unit` actress Mariska Hargitay and `CSI`s
Marg Helgenberger, who all made USD 10 million each.

`Desperate Housewives` stars Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman both made
USD 9 million from their roles, while `Cougar Town`s Courteney Cox and
`Grey`s Anatomy` actress Ellen Pompeo each raked in USD 7 million
dollars.

`The Good Wife` star Julianna Marguiles who
recently won the Best Actress Emmy for her role as politician`s wife
Alicia Floret in the drama series rounded off the top 10, having earned
USD 6 million from the show.

Companies Use Immigration Crackdown to Turn a Profit

The men showed up in a small town in Australia’s
outback early last year, offering top dollar for all available
lodgings. Within days, their company, Serco, was flying in recruits from
as far away as London, and busing them from trailers to work 12-hour
shifts as guards in a remote camp where immigrants seeking asylum are
indefinitely detained.

Andrew Quilty for The New York Times

Australia has relied on private security companies to
run immigrant detention centers in places like Perth.

It was just a small part of a pattern on three continents where a
handful of multinational security companies have been turning crackdowns
on immigration into a growing global industry.
Especially in Britain,
the United States and Australia, governments of different stripes have
increasingly looked to such companies to expand detention and show
voters they are enforcing tougher immigration laws.
Some of the companies are huge — one is among the largest private
employers in the world — and they say they are meeting demand faster and
less expensively than the public sector could.
But the ballooning of privatized detention has been accompanied by scathing inspection reports, lawsuits and the documentation of widespread abuse and neglect, sometimes lethal. Human rights groups say detention has neither worked as a deterrent nor speeded deportation,
as governments contend, and some worry about the creation of a
“detention-industrial complex” with a momentum of its own.
“They’re very good at the glossy brochure,” said Kaye Bernard, general
secretary of the union of detention workers on the Australian territory
of Christmas Island, where riots erupted this year between asylum
seekers and guards. “On the ground, it’s almost laughable, the chaos and
the inability to function.”
Private prisons in the United States have long stirred controversy. But
while there have been conflicting studies about their costs and
benefits, no systematic comparisons exist for immigration detention, say
scholars like Matthew J. Gibney, a political scientist at the
University of Oxford who tracks immigration systems.
Still, Mr. Gibney and others say the pitfalls of outsourcing immigration
enforcement have become evident in the past 15 years. “When something
goes wrong — a death, an escape — the government can blame it on a kind
of market failure instead of an accountability failure,” he said.
In the United States — with almost 400,000 annual detentions in 2010, up
from 280,000 in 2005 — private companies now control nearly half of all
detention beds, compared with only 8 percent in state and federal
prisons, according to government figures. In Britain, 7 of 11 detention
centers and most short-term holding places for immigrants are run by
for-profit contractors.
No country has more completely outsourced immigration enforcement, with
more troubled results, than Australia. Under unusually severe mandatory
detention laws, the system has been run by a succession of three
publicly traded companies since 1998. All three are now major players in
the international business of locking up and transporting unwanted
foreigners.
The first, the Florida-based prison company GEO Group, lost its Australia contract in 2003 amid a commission’s findings
that detained children were subjected to cruel treatment. An Australian
government audit reported that the contract had not delivered
“value-for-money.” In the United States, GEO controls 7,000 of 32,000
detention beds.
The second company, G4S,
an Anglo-Danish security conglomerate with more than 600,000 employees
in 125 countries, was faulted for lethal neglect and abusive use of
solitary confinement in Australia. By the middle of the past decade,
after refugee children had sewed their lips together during hunger strikes
in camps like Woomera and Curtin, and government commissions discovered
that Australian citizens and legal residents were being wrongly
detained and deported, protests pushed the Liberal Party government to
dismantle some aspects of the system.
But after promising to return the work to the public sector, a Labor government awarded a five-year, $370 million contract to Serco
in 2009. The value of the contract has since soared beyond $756 million
as detention sites quadrupled, to 24, and the number of detainees
ballooned to 6,700 from 1,000. Dangerous Problems
Over the past year, riots, fires and suicidal protests left millions of
dollars in damage at Serco-run centers from Christmas Island to
Villawood, outside Sydney, and self-harm by detainees rose twelvefold,
government documents show. In August, a government inspection report
cited dangerous overcrowding, inadequate and ill-trained staff, no
crisis planning and no requirement that Serco add employees when
population exceeded capacity.
At the detention center Serco runs in Villawood, immigrants spoke of
long, open-ended detentions making them crazy. Alwy Fadhel, 33, an
Indonesian Christian who said he needed asylum from Islamic persecution,
had long black hair coming out in clumps after being held for more than
three years, in and out of solitary confinement.
“We talk to ourselves,” Mr. Fadhel said. “We talk to the mirror; we talk to the wall.”
Naomi Leong, a shy 9-year-old, was born in the detention camp. For more
than three years, at a cost of about $380,000, she and her mother were
held behind its barbed wire. Psychiatrists said Naomi was growing up
mute, banging her head against the walls while her mother, Virginia
Leong, a Malaysian citizen accused of trying to use a false passport,
sank into depression.

Naomi and her mother became a cause célèbre in protests against the
mandatory detention system, leading to their release in 2005 on rare
humanitarian visas. They are now citizens.

“I come here to give little bit of hope to the people,” Ms. Leong said
during a recent visit to Villawood, where posters display the governing
principles of Serco, beginning with “We foster an entrepreneurial
culture.” Free-Market Solutions
Companies often say that losing a contract is the ultimate accountability.
“We are acutely aware of our responsibilities and are committed to the
humane, fair and decent treatment of all those in our care,” a Serco
spokesman said in an e-mail. “We will continue to work with our
customers around the world and seek to improve the services we provide
for them.”
But lost detention contracts are rare and easily replaced in this
fast-growing business. Serco’s $10 billion portfolio includes many other
businesses, from air traffic control and visa processing in the United
States, to nuclear weapons maintenance, video surveillance and
welfare-to-work programs in Britain, where it also operates several
prisons and two “immigration removal centers.”
“If one area or territory slows down, we can move where the growth is,”
Christopher Hyman, Serco’s chief executive, told investors last year,
after reporting a 35 percent increase in profits. This spring, Serco
reported a 13 percent profit rise.
Its rival G4S delivers cash to banks on most continents, runs airport security
in 80 countries and has 1,500 employees in immigration enforcement in
Britain, the Netherlands and the United States, where its services
include escorting illegal border-crossers back to Mexico for the
Department of Homeland Security.
Nick Buckles, the chief executive of G4S, would not discuss the company.
But last year he told analysts how its “justice” business in the
Netherlands blossomed in one week after the 2002 assassination of a
politician with an anti-immigrant and law-and-order agenda.
“There’s nothing like a political crisis to stimulate a bit of change,” Mr. Buckles said.
In Britain last fall, the company came under criminal investigation in
the asphyxiation of an Angolan man who died as three G4S escorts held
him down on a British Airways flight. Soon afterward, British
immigration authorities announced that the company had lost its bid to
renew a $48 million deportation escort contract because it was underbid
by a competitor.
Even so, G4S has more than $1.1 billion in government contracts in
Britain, a spokesman said, only about $126 million from the immigration
authority. It quickly replaced the lost revenue with contracts to build,
lease and run more police jails and prisons.
In 2007, Western Australia’s Human Rights Commission found that G4S
drivers had ignored the cries of detainees locked in a scorching van,
leaving them so dehydrated that one drank his own urine. The company was
ordered to pay $500,000 for inhumane treatment, but three of the five
victims already had been deported. Immigration officials, relying on
company misinformation, had dismissed their complaints without
investigation, the commission found.
There was a public outcry when an Aboriginal man died in another G4S van
in similar circumstances the next year. A coroner ruled in 2009 that
G4S, the drivers and the government shared the blame. The company was
later awarded a $70 million, five-year prisoner transport contract in
another state, Victoria, without competition.
G4S pleaded guilty to negligence in the van death this year, and was
fined $285,000. Mr. Buckles, its chief executive, alluded to the case at
a meeting with analysts in March, reassuring them.
“There is only two or three major players, typically sometimes only two
people bidding,” Mr. Buckles said. “In time, we will become a winner in
that market because there’s a lot of outsourcing opportunities and not
many competitors.”

In August, when GEO, the Florida prison company, posted a 40 percent
rise in second-quarter profits, its executives in Boca Raton spoke of
new immigration business on both sides of the Atlantic.
John M. Hurley, a GEO executive for North American operations, cited
“the continued growth in the criminal alien population,” larger
facilities, and longer federal contracts, some up to 20 years.
At the company’s Reeves County Detention Center in Texas, immigrant
inmates rioted in 2009 and 2010 after several detainees died in solitary
confinement. GEO executives declined to comment. But speaking to
shareholders, they credited much of the quarter’s $10 million increase
in international revenue to the expansion of a detention center in
Britain, where immigration was a hot issue in the 2010 election. A Policy Backfires
“Britain is no longer a soft touch,” Damian Green, the immigration
minister, said in August 2010 when he visited the center, near Heathrow
Airport, reopening wings that had burned in 2006 during detainee riots
under a different private operator.
The riots started the day the chief inspector of prisons released a
blistering report about abuses there, including excessive waits for
deportation. Months after Mr. Green’s appearance, an independent
monitoring board complained that at the expanded center — now Europe’s
largest, with 610 detainees — at least 35 men had been waiting more than
a year to be deported, including one locked up for three years and
seven months at a cost of at least $237,000.
The camp that Serco took over in the Australian outback, the Curtin
Immigration Detention Center, had also been shut down amid riots and
hunger strikes in 2002. But it was reopened last year to handle a surge
of asylum seekers arriving by boat even as the government imposed a
moratorium on processing their claims. Refurbished for 300 men, the camp
sits on an old air force base and held more than 1,500 detainees in
huts and tents behind an electrified fence. Serco guards likened the
compound to a free-range chicken farm.
On March 28, a 19-year-old Afghan from a group persecuted by the Taliban hanged himself after 10 months’ detention — the system’s fifth suicide
in seven months. A dozen guards, short of sleep and training, found
themselves battling hundreds of grieving, angry detainees for the
teenager’s body.
“We have lost control,” said Richard Harding, who served for a decade as
Western Australia’s chief prison inspector. He is no enemy of
privatization, and his praise for a Serco-run prison is posted on the
company’s Web site. But he said Curtin today was emblematic of “a flawed
arrangement that’s going to go wrong no matter who’s running it.”
“These big global companies, in relation to specific activities, are
more powerful than the governments they’re dealing with,” he added.